Soak the seaweed for 20 minutes in saucepan, then boil for 20 minutes. Cool before adding to veggies...I used a colandar and ran it under cold water like you'd do with pasta.

Toast sesame seeds by spreading in a cookie sheet and baking at 325 for 15 minutes or until they're brown and aromatic

Cut up all the veggies..mix dressing ingredients and toss.

(I made this tonight for my big party tomorrow so I'd have some vegan friendly food. I ended up doubling the dressing because it seemed sort of dry...doubling it made almost too much so you may want to choose small-ish heads of bok-choy, napa, and red cabbage.)

amilita, if you could type it up for me i would be very very grateful.

lys, i used to make stuffed mushrooms similer to yours. i used the medium sized portobellos and chopped up the stems very fine along with fresh garlic, crab meat and parm. cheese. use the mix to fill the mushroom caps and bake or grill or broil (whatever works for you) until warm and melty. yum!

this is what happens when your cooking instructor(my dad) is a boy scout leader and makes do with what he's got on hand.

i made the best fruit salad...with what i had on hand...apple chunks, halved strawberries and blueberries...but i had no pineapple juice...so i used lemon juice...but then it was too lemony...so a tsp. of vanilla extract...pop it in my smart tupperware(it has a ice pack in it) and let it sit for an hour(during class). on break i popped it open, the smell was divine!!! the girls were like 'whos got cake?' mmmm they offered to buy it off me if i made more...hm...side gig?

Yum, lys! I've been thinking about getting the grill going soon...I forgot how well feta goes with pesto.

bklyn, thanks for the gumbo recipie...I think I just need to start experimenting with it to get it down just the way I like it.

And the shrimp salad with remoulade turned out so good...ya know when you're making something, and you think it's not gonna be great? Well, I thought that and I was wrong! The tarragon vinegar gave a nice undertone...I don't love heavy tarragon flavor, like chicken salad with a ton of it. Yuck. But I'm glad to know I don't dislike it totally.

amilita: brush the bottom of large portobellos with EVOO, then top with pesto, slices of tomato, and feta on the BBQ. Put 'em under the grill for five minutes at the end if you want the tops a little more melty.

That's what we had on Sunday at our...impromptu BBQ!!!! And sausages. Mmmm......carcinogenic.

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Noon comes and turns this campus upside downI watch the students in this college townYou would think they're carefree, I have seen their trialsFrowning into Shakespeare and practicing their smiles

my gumbo recipe (passed down through goddess knows how many generations of good cajun women):

first you make a roux - i do half a cup of flour and half a cup of whatever cooking oil i have on hand. i like a seriously dark gumbo, so i brown mine halfway to coffee. if you like yours lighter, i would reccommend a caramel or peanut butter color. you could even be provencal and not brown it much at all.

(time out in case anybody other than amilita wants to use this recipe and doesn't know how to make a roux - put a pan or pot on pretty good heat. add half a cup of oil, any cooking oil will do. give it a good swirl and add half a cup of flour, stirring gradually until it mixes in. at this point, you have to lower the heat and stir nonstop until the roux starts to brown, but NOT burn. my quickie way is to get the pan and oil real hot, and then take it off the heat for a while once the flour is stirred in. the heat of the pan and oil will cause the roux to brown, but at a very slow rate that doesn't need to be stirred nearly so much -- that said, you should definitely supervise it, but you can take a time out to chop vegetables while the roux browns)

when the roux is browned how you like, add half an onion, a medium sized bell pepper, and a couple or three stalks of celery, all chopped pretty fine. i throw in some garlic, too, if i remember. i also sometimes substitute a red or yellow pepper for green, though this is tres nontraditional. i believe this is also the time to add the okra if you do that, though i'm a file girl and generally don't do okra unless it's shrimp gumbo. or unless i'm hard up for file, which is pretty much unobtainable up here so i have to stock up when i'm in south louisiana.

you let the onions, peppers, celery, etc. cook till the onions are transparent. at this point, if you started things in a pan, you'll want to transfer to the big pot, because it's time to start adding stuff.

any meat (non-seafood) or particularly hardy vegetables (carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, etc.) should go in first. the previously mentioned vegetables aren't traditional for gumbo, but if you're feeding vegetarians you have to put SOMETHING in there. it's also time to add your liquid, be it chicken stock, veg stock, greens water, etc. i usually put in one of those quart containers of stock, and it's generally liquidy enough for my taste. if i'm stretching it for a lot of people, i'll add a cup or so of water. another way to keep it real liquidy are to avoid using either okra or file -- this is technically not official gumbo, but honestly what matters is that it tastes good to you, not whether it's "authentic" or not.

after the liquid and meat (if you're going there) are in, it's time to add more delicate stuff, seafood or lighter vegetables. one of my favorite gumbos is gumbo z'herbes -- i add a big bag of frozen chopped spinach and a smaller thingie of either collard greens or whatever other interesting frozen greens my yankeefied supermarket carries. the 'from scratch' way of doing this would be to boil fresh greens and then use the water for your gumbo liquid. but honestly, in all that gumbo nobody knows the difference, so i use frozen greens and vegetable stock.

you let the gumbo simmer until all meat is cooked, whether chicken or oysters. start up a big pot of rice, and let the gumbo simmer away -- my mom will leave a pot of gumbo on the stove for hours, so no worries about overcooking. at this point, you might also want to spice the gumbo. i use a couple bay leaves, a good shake of hot sauce, and my cajun spice blend, which is home blended from equal parts black pepper, white pepper, cayenne pepper, and salt. you could also just get tony cachere's or emeril's or whatever if you're unsure.

if you didn't add okra and still want that traditional gumbo thickness, you should put your jar of file on the table along with the salt, pepper, hot sauce, etc. for people to add to taste. apparently it makes the gumbo texture weird if you add it in during cooking. though i'll add it myself as a last step before serving if i'm having a bunch people over who've never had gumbo, as they have no idea what to do with the file.

and there you have gumbo, the way my mama and mawmaw and on and on made it...

damona, do you have the Joy of Cooking? They have a good red beans and rice recipie...the key is getting good smoked or andouille sausage. Red beans and rice is one of those things that everyone makes differently, but if you want the Joy version, I'll type it up for you. Make it to eat on Monday if you want to be traditional.

I gotta find a gumbo recipie I love...I don't like it real dark or thick. This guy I know made a real nontraditional version that was brothy, tomato-y, and had chunks of veggies, including pieces of grilled corn on the cob...but I asked him about it, and he didn't even remember making it, much less how.

amilita, those sound quite tasty. the appetizers for the gallery opening, i mean.

i had sugared strawberries last night and called it dinner. hee!

can someone give me a good red beans and rice recipe? i mean, i get the basics (um... red beans and rice, right?? lol) but what seasonings and such do you use?

i haven't forgotten about the everything-free banana cake recipe i said i'd post, i just can't find it! i'm looking, i promise!

i made rye/spelt rolls the other day and they turned out really well. i used them for tuna melts with tofutti cheese for the little ones. they loved 'em! they are just yeast, sugar, water, rye flour and spelt flour, but i can't remember the proportions right now... the dough is really sticky and hard to mix/shape though. maybe it needs more flour?

Yum, dusty! I've been craving feta lately. Usually I just make a basic salad...any unusual ideas for it anyone?

A friend gave me some tarragon vinegar, and I was so excited, but also thinking, "What the heck am I gonna make with this?" And then lo and behold, I saw a recipie for a shimp salad with remoulade sauce that called for it...I'm having a friend over for dinner to try it. Yay!

No one gave me gallery snack ideas, but we decided we'd just put out chocolate and strawberries (Louisianna strawberries are sweet and so dark red right now) and offer white wine only because it's all hot. Easy. And that'll be all fancy and nice, right?

Lot, those bacon wrapped cherry tomotoes remind me of a very favourite recpie of bacon wrapped water chestnuts. You marinade the chestnuts in sugar and soy sauce then bake them. I'm trying to go veggie but if I go to someone's house where these are out as an appetizer i devour them. I'm craving them right now...mmmm...